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Chapter 15
“Um, Lady Laila…”
The person who called out to Laila with a bewildered expression was Camille, the teacher of Alpha Class.
Camille, who was also a distant relative of Laila, rarely lost her composure.
But this time was different.
Laila understood her expression perfectly.
“Is it really possible to produce this kind of strength… without awakening the power of water?”
Laila herself felt much the same way.
“You’ve awakened the power of water, Lady Laila. Please, say something.”
“That’s right, Lady Laila. What on earth…”
Aika, the assistant teacher of Alpha Class, chimed in as well, her face pale as if she’d seen a ghost.
In particular, there was a look on Aika’s face that combined utter shock with the excitement of a reporter who had just discovered a major scoop!
“She really is amazing…”
Wasn’t Aika’s maternal grandfather a flying-fish beastfolk…?
Laila briefly recalled the assistant teacher’s family background and figured that today’s events would spread throughout the institution within a single day.
No, this time, perhaps the rumor would spread far enough for every collateral branch to hear about it.
At the very least, in the thirty years that she had been in charge, there had never been an orca who caused this much trouble immediately after enrolling.
Not even her own brothers—the infamous delinquents, bullies, and lunatics who each held one of those titles—had managed to accomplish such a feat.
‘At this point, although I said it jokingly…’
Laila’s expression became serious.
‘We really do have another powerful candidate for heir.’
Yet soon, an unmistakably small smile appeared at the corner of her lips.
There was one thing Laila had overlooked.
This time, it wasn’t going to take a day.
The rumor had spread throughout the institution in less than half a day.
“That’s so coool!”
“She’s cooler than my mommy!”
An hour had passed since Charon had been thoroughly put in his place.
I thought the children were pretty cute, but hearing the same reactions over and over for an entire hour was starting to get tiresome.
“Miss! Please teach me too!”
…Admiration and praise were nice and all.
But wasn’t an hour long enough, kids?
Orcas were social animals whose hierarchy was determined by strength.
After realizing the hierarchy with a single blow, Charon had immediately learned his place.
I sent him to the seat at the very end of the classroom.
So Charon was currently sitting there pitifully by himself.
I gave him a chair and called it the “Thinking Chair.”
The children giggled and loved the idea.
From what I heard, almost every child in this class except for a few orcas had been beaten up by him before.
Seriously, what kind of person beats up children?
I was lenient toward whales that weren’t orcas.
‘Where are you going to find children who love peace this much?’
Fighting should be left to people who actually liked fighting.
If there was one thing I had respected and liked about my brothers, it was that they always picked fights with other orcas.
‘No, wait. Did they only fight people who picked fights with them?’
Anyway, someone who punched an innocent person who was just minding their own business was…
Look at how my memories were getting distorted.
‘The third one was a lunatic who didn’t even have that excuse.’
I shook my head.
Meanwhile, the children’s applause still hadn’t stopped.
‘Hey, kids. Aren’t you going to do today’s assignment?’
Even the teachers were staring at me with sparkling eyes or wearing expressions of complete bewilderment.
At this point, I had no choice but to give up.
“Everyone, be quiet.”
I dusted off my hands and raised my index finger to my lips.
Shh.
I had just discovered the secret to making children quiet after only an hour.
As if they’d been waiting for it, the children stopped their giggling.
Some even covered their mouths with their hands.
How well-behaved.
The orca children mixed among them already understood that the hierarchy had been decided and were keeping their heads down accordingly.
How convenient.
“Everyone, take your seats. Good whales must study hard.”
“Yes!”
“Yeees!”
Three years old.
First day at Alpha Class.
Take over the class.
‘Ha. So this is the power of being the boss. All the attention that comes with being the boss.’
That was my great achievement for the day.
…Even if I was probably going to kick myself under the blankets that night for thinking something so ridiculous.
On the way home after finishing my lessons that day.
‘Whew. What a fulfilling day.’
I walked toward the carriage, still carrying the same bag I’d worn that morning.
Come to think of it, the stairs I’d struggled so hard to climb that morning now had to be descended.
A tiny groan escaped me.
But what could I do?
I was the boss of the orcas as of today.
I could certainly endure this much hardship.
The problem was that now my classroom was up there, which meant I would have to struggle up those stairs every morning.
‘Well, I suppose that’s the price of being in the highest-level class.’
As for Charon, who had been acting up earlier and had his place in the hierarchy thoroughly established, he hadn’t been allowed to leave the “Thinking Chair” all day.
‘I thought the teachers would at least scold him or give him a warning once…’
The teachers and assistant teachers of the highest-level class were all members of collateral orca branches.
Perhaps because they had witnessed the entire fight over hierarchy, they didn’t intervene at all.
It was practically an implicit acknowledgment.
In fact, the assistant teacher of this class kept looking at me with eyes that sparkled almost to the point of being overwhelming.
The teacher had warned her, so she didn’t come over to say anything.
“Perhaps you won’t need to change classes again. I even thought we might not see you here for very long at all.”
That was what Laila said to me after class before leaving.
“I think life at the institution is going to become much more interesting from now on.”
Indeed.
According to my plans, I didn’t intend to stay here for very long.
More importantly, I only planned to remain here until I was ten.
In other words, I had to accomplish something truly impressive before I turned ten and then leave.
‘I’m confident I can do it.’
I opened and closed my hands while looking at the staircase ahead.
It was time to put thoughts of the distant future aside and face the small challenge in front of me.
‘Sigh. Let’s consider this another necessary trial to show Grandmother what I’m capable of.’
Damn it.
Who on earth made these stairs so ridiculously tall?
Just as I sighed and began laboriously making my way down the stairs—
“Miss!”
“Miss!!”
I looked up.
Two children with very pale white hair were looking at me.
Their hair was smooth and glossy, and their unusually large pupils gave them an appearance similar to the dolphin children.
‘Are they belugas?’
Belugas.
Also known as white whales.
Perhaps because their actual forms were so cute and smooth-looking, these children also had remarkably bright and clever expressions.
Incidentally, despite their name, belugas aren’t actually a type of dolphin.
‘They’re rather small even among whales, aren’t they?’
Still, they were older than me, so I had to look up at them.
“Why did you call me?”
“We wanted to say hello!”
“Say hello!! Hello!”
After spending the day in class with them, I had realized that these two were quite—no, among the smartest children in the class.
Well, belugas were naturally among the more intelligent whales.
In my previous world, weren’t they even considered animals capable of communicating with humans?
And although they were playful, they loved peace, which made them particularly incompatible with orcas.
‘They were probably the ones who got bullied the most.’
It had been the same in my previous life.
There were hardly any children who spoke their minds as freely as these two or the common dolphin who had once been my most loyal strategist.
They were smart, generally righteous, and didn’t like doing things that went against their own principles.
Naturally, that meant they were incompatible with the tyrannical, self-centered orcas.
“I only do what I want to do. I’m smart, so I’m allowed to.”
Whether it was the two beluga children standing in front of me now or that common dolphin who had followed me devotedly in my previous life, they were exactly the same.
“What kind of greeting?”
Perhaps because I had suddenly remembered a subordinate I had once treasured, I couldn’t bring myself to chase these tiny twins away.
I had to hurry home and then go to Pierre’s house, though.
“We want to thank you for saving our class!”
“You saved us!”
“Hero!”
“Hero!!”
“Alright, alright. If that’s the kind of greeting you’re talking about, you can do it ten more times.”
I crossed my arms and nodded.
If it was praise for my greatness, I could accept it a hundred times today.
“I’m an orca too, so I like hearing people tell me how great I am.”
“You like it?”
“We like it!”
“Miss is the best!”
“You’re so cool!”
“Yes, yes. I am indeed very cool.”
I decided to be a little more generous and walk down the stairs with the beluga twins.
Honestly, I didn’t want to show them how I struggled down the stairs.
But I was in a good mood now, so I didn’t mind.
“Charon hit me really hard! My forehead got all dented.”
“My head got pushed in too.”
“He was definitely in the wrong. But aren’t your heads normally kind of soft?”
“Gasp! How do you know that?”
“You know?”
“Your skin stays soft until you’re ten, right? Isn’t that true for all belugas…?”
As I tried to recall my hazy knowledge from my previous life, the beluga twins suddenly stared at me with sparkling eyes.
“Miss knows a lot about belugas?”
“It’s not like I don’t know anything.”
It was an indifferent answer.
Yet their eyes shone even more brightly than the assistant teacher’s had earlier.
“This is the first time!”
“First time!”
“Mommy said you should be nice to someone when they’re meeting you for the first time! So I was nice to Daddy too!”
“Me too! I was nice!”
“…”
“I don’t think that is what she meant by ‘first time.’”
